


Sweet Mother, I Cannot Weave

by HC_Weatherfield



Series: The Celery Fields (An Ineffable Wives!verse) [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F, Flower Crowns, Ineffable Wives, Jealous Crowley, sappho is the oscar wilde of ineffable wives and I am not accepting criticism on that at this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 00:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20434856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HC_Weatherfield/pseuds/HC_Weatherfield
Summary: A couple of millennia is a completely healthy amount of time to hold onto one's jealousy of a dead poet, and furthermore, Crowley is not at all jealous.





	Sweet Mother, I Cannot Weave

Crowley slept for a week after the world didn’t end.

Not immediately after, of course; she had to spend a night pacing about her apartment, first, fretting with her Angel about how to outwit the death traps Heaven and Hell had laid out for them. And then she had to spend days inhabiting her beloved’s corporation, trying not to touch it or look at it more than necessary, out of decidedly undemonly respect for the Angel’s privacy. And then she had to maintain her composure while the wretched angels of Heaven insulted sweet, clever, bastardly Aziraphale. And then, when their survival was assured, she had had to take her Angel out to the Ritz. Then, Crowley had slept for a week.

While a week wasn’t much time in the grand scheme of things, especially not to a couple of immortal ethereal and/or occult beings, she was still rather expecting an enthusiastic welcome from Aziraphale; perhaps even a delighted cry of, “I’ve missed you, dear girl!” or something to that effect. Instead, when she miracled the door of the bookshop unlocked and strolled through it, she was greeted with silence. She flicked out her tongue, sniffing for signs of Aziraphale’s presence. Yes, there it was: cold cocoa, parchment, the Aziraphale-scent of earl grey de la creme and old leather and roses. She was here, then. She was safe. She was reading.

“Angel?” Crowley called out tentatively. “I had a nice nap. Fancy a nibble?”

No response. That wouldn’t do. Crowley took the matter in hand and strode to the back room, where, sure enough, Aziraphale was reading, dust settled on her shoulders and head. She looked as though she had been reading for as long as Crowley had been asleep. Crowley couldn’t help but take a moment, while the Angel was occupied, to admire her. The light catching on her blond eyelashes, the ivory and petal pink of her cheeks, the white curls burnished with gold… and the ridiculous hat she had refused to take off since she bought it in Paris in the late nineteenth century, its once-white silk flowers stained tea-colored with age, its demure wedge settled in her hair like a smug bird in a nest. The Edwardian pintuck blouse, the embroidered cardigan she’d worn to Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation (escorted by a vaguely male-presenting and unambiguously eye-rolling Crowley), the tartan skirt, and, hidden but certainly there beneath it, the white leather boots. Her absurd Angel.

Then she took a look at the scroll on the desk. At the lettering. That was Greek, that was. Crowley narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

“Good book?”

Aziraphale started. “Oh! Dear girl, lovely to see you. Yes, it is, rather. I’m afraid it carried me away entirely. I do hope I haven’t made you wait.”

“Not much,” said Crowley, softening very slightly. “You’re fine, Angel, really. I’m sure whoever you’re reading is in greater need of your company.”

“Come now, dear girl, you know that’s not the case. Let me just roll this up and we’ll have a spot of lunch, yes?”

“All right then,” said Crowley, “if your friend doesn’t want to come with us, that is.”

Aziraphale looked at her in confusion, then had a realization. Her expression changed and--oh, this was bad--it was the _disappointed_ look.

“You’ve seen what I was reading.”

Crowley sprawled herself against the wall (difficult to do standing up, if one wasn’t a part-time serpent) in unconvincing nonchalance. “What if I have?”

Aziraphale gave a tiny, disapproving huff. “So. It’s about the Poet again. I thought we had this out over King James’ card tables, but I suppose not. I suppose we’re really going to have to have this conversation again.”

“Poet?” said Crowley blithely. “Which poet?”

“Don’t be obtuse, my dear, it doesn’t suit you.”

“It’s just,” said Crowley, “that there have been so many poets throughout, oh, I dunno, all of history? Many of whom we have met? So when you say ‘Poet’ as if it refers to just one human, you can see how I--”

“Oh, do simmer down, dear, we both know who I mean.”

“Supposing we do?”

“Well.” Aziraphale began, slowly and deliberately, to roll up the scroll. “We both know you’ve nursed quite the resentment over the years. Out with it, then. Let’s have it out.”

“I’m hardly feeling talkative,” Crowley protested. “You’re not even looking at me!”

“This--scroll--is--quite--precious,” Aziraphale responded, continuing to concentrate on putting it away. “It contains the only surviving text of the Poet’s longest work, ‘The Celery Fields,’ of which, in all other texts, only one word remains.”

“Pssh,” said Crowley. “Ridiculous, really, all these humans running around getting worked up over a bunch of sentence fragments.”

Aziraphale sighed, suddenly looking far away. “It is a shame, isn’t it, that more of her work has not been passed down?”

“Yeah. Real shame.”

“_Really_, my dear.” Aziraphale finished sealing the scroll into its case and stood. “If we hadn’t had that conversation on the subject at Court, I’m sure I’d still suspect you of fragmenting said sentences yourself.”

“Eeeehhhh. Not my style.”

“So you said. And I believe you. That’s what angels do; we believe.”

“Come off it.”

“Harumph.”

Crowley couldn’t stay mad, not entirely. When Aziraphale harrumphed, Crowley melted.

“Sorry, Angel. Come on then. Lunch?”

“Yes, in a moment.” Aziraphale caught Crowley’s eye. “I _did_ write to you, you know. I wanted you to be there, more than--well, more than I should have, I suppose.”

“I know, Angel.” Crowley sighed. “It’s my own fault. I was having a jolly time in India and thought, ‘well, Aziraphale wants me to come enjoy a few meadows with a Greek poet she knows. Been there, done that, lied to Beelzebub about it, these monks here are contorting their bodies in interesting ways, think I’ll hang about here. How was I supposed to know you were over there witnessing the invention of lesbians?”

“Oh, dear girl, you know better than to think she invented lesbian culture. She is merely its namesake.”

“All right, well, yeah, but--nnmf,” Crowley gesticulated wildly, “is my point.”

“I do wish you could have known Sappho,” said Aziraphale, quieter now, wistful. “She was such a bright light, my dear. And she had a sense of humor even you couldn’t have found fault with. I wish we could remember her together.”

“I guess I do, too,” Crowley admitted, doing her best not to appear utterly blown away by Aziraphale’s confession, which she was. Aziraphale, in turn, held her gaze, seemingly deep in thought. When Crowley realized that there was a blush slowly rising on the Angel’s cheeks, she cocked her head in question.

“You know, dear,” Aziraphale said, almost casually except for an infinitesimal tremor in her voice, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”

“Nngk,” said Crowley.

“I can’t help but imagine,” said Aziraphale, voice dropping almost to a whisper, “that I’d not feel much different if the situation were reversed. To think of you, dancing, a wreath of flowers in your fine bright hair...your bare feet in the dewy grass...to think that others might have been given the opportunity to witness that, while I was elsewhere…”

“Angel?” Crowley said, and this _was_ in a whisper.

“_Sweet mother, I cannot weave_,” said Aziraphale in a dialect Crowley hadn’t heard in centuries. “_Slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl_. I told Sappho my woes, Crowley. I told her of the task my mother had set to me. I told her how l--” she swallowed-- “how love had made that task impossible. She thought I meant that I had been ordered to make an undesirable marriage, not to thwart Hell’s wiles, but the result was the same. What I was created to do, I could not accomplish. Because of you, Crowley. Because of what I felt--feel--”

“_Bless_ it!” Crowley growled, suddenly full of furious energy. “I should have gone to that blessed island and saved us a few millennia of this nonsense. Angel, I--” But instead of finishing that sentence she grabbed Aziraphale by the shoulders and kissed her, pointedly.

Aziraphale did not freeze or, really, display any sign of surprise at all. Instead, she gave a tiny moan and her mouth softened, became pliable, opened a little. Crowley leaned in, cupped the back of her neck, then moved a hand into her curls--

“--hate this hat,” she said as she removed the offending piece of haberdashery, and Aziraphale miracled it out of her hand and, presumably, into her own very fussy dressing-room. It made no difference. Crowley knew she could burn it later. But she never would.

They went back to kissing.


End file.
